Here presented is the epic American struggle to end slavery, reaffirm national interest over states' rights and hold together the diverging culture and economy of the nation's agrarian south and newly industrial north.

By the mid-1800s, slavery, long abandoned in the north, becomes a moral cause fueling fervent abolitionists and an underground railroad bringing slaves to freedom (and to northern factories). The proposed admission of new states to the Union raises the issue to the level of policy. The young Republican party would deny slavery in new states. Democrats propose legislation letting each new state decide, but even this is too much federal interference for many southerners. In November, 1860, third party candidates fracture the Democratic vote and Lincoln, a Republican, is elected. By January, 1861, seven slave states secede from the Union, electing Jefferson Davis as president of their Confederacy. Both presidents call for army volunteers, and the great variety of America's decentralized military (local militias and state volunteer forces each with its own distinctive uniforms and traditions) muster and recruit to join their side of the cause. In April, Davis orders his commander, Beauregard, to take the still federally held Ft. Sumter in Charleston Harbor. After futile resistance, the garrison surrenders; the war has begun. Five more states secede. By July, with great fanfare and high expectation of a quick victory, each army assembles and marches off to war.